Nuke: NoA vs EYE (CPL Winter 2004)

Earlier in the tournament, NoA’s mistakes added up to a loss on Nuke against the same EYE team. This time indecisiveness on the Terrorist side of Nuke cost them. Ignore the flash bug ruling and focus on the strats used by the teams. NoA attacked the ramp two straight times to open the match, resulting in losses both times, but each were clean entrances. They could have won both, even the save round. EYE didn’t challenge them at all, leaving them many options but NoA seemed unsure which option to use. They were waiting for an EYE retake of ramp room that never came. This indecisiveness cost NoA while EYE picked them off, one by one, as the Norwegians and North Americans got antsy.

Even though NoA won the first half 10-5 before the flash bug ruling changed it to a 10-5 score for EYE, it really looked like NoA was uncoordinated at times. Their attack success was staggering at the ramp room, 6-2, but their upper rush lacked effective timing resulting in a 4-4 mark when attacking that site. Often it seemed like flash bangs were ineffective at opening up holes in the EYE defense of upper bombsite, while timing between the outside attackers and the choke attackers was haphazard at best.

A defeated NoA team on the CT side was desperate but still displayed some impressive individual performances. An opening round pistol rush gave the look of desperation but it was to be a common theme, NoA displayed similar aggressive styles on other CT pistol rounds for other maps. The biggest problem for NoA was that its players gave up and were unable to hold sites.

Moum played ramp with support from Johannessen, where it felt like the two didn’t communicate well, while So and Olaisen handled the upper bombsite. Moum honestly would have been a better fit in the upper bombsite because his aggressive style of play fits well attacking the choke through the hut at critical times. Overall, the positions of NoA really didn’t fit their personnel as well as they did on Inferno. The best fit was probably Benger who played outside, getting creative when he didn’t have an AWP, spending one round on the upper catwalk.

NoA did do a better job with the bomb down though, winning two of the three rounds and probably would have given EYE a heck of a match even with the forfeited rounds had they not given up emotionally.

GameSense Match Box Score

ICMATCH=94